Opportunities for Learning and Research

First, in the Field of Thermophysics and Fluid Mechanics, students will acquire an advanced knowledge of engineering technologies and their application to the fields of Aeronautics and Astronautics, such as external flows around aircrafts or airfoils and internal flows inside engines, energy conversion from chemical energy of fuel into propulsion power, computational and experimental technologies dealing comprehensively with heat and flow phenomena, and cutting-edge micro-nano technologies.

Second, in the field of Aerospace Structures and Structural Dynamics, we aim to develop lightweight structures with high-reliability for aircrafts, rockets, satellites, and space-structures. Thus, the students in this field will learn structures and structural dynamics to improve reliability of airframe structural technology and systems design methods of space vehicle, to investigate thermally-induced vibration mechanism of space structures due to the solar radiation, and to find damage tolerance mechanisms of advanced composite materials. Also, they will join researches on solving advanced issues in this field.

Third, the field relevant to Flight Dynamics and Controls provides education and research opportunities concerning flight dynamics and kinematic analysis of aircraft and spacecraft, automatic control, and equipment. We promote research which applies optimization theory, advanced control technology, and imaging technology in order to develop autonomous systems for unmanned aircraft and spacecraft. We are offering comprehensive and practical education through the research where we actually develop compact-sized unmanned aerial vehicles and robots, and conduct verification experiments with them.

The fields relevant to space system engineering conduct comprehensive education through wind tunnel experiments and flight experiments, numerical analysis, and development of a small-sized artificial satellites related to the movement and orbiting of spacecraft, which is basic to achieving space activities in a gravitational field of the planets and the sun, aerodynamic heating during reentry of the spacecraft and spacecraft geometry that allows the orbital and interplanetary round trip travel between the Earth and outer space, a new propulsion system for hypersonic flight, and space technology represented by microgravity experiments at the space station.

Also, there are three fields working in cooperation with the Research Institute for Applied Mechanics in our department. These fields provide educational opportunities which are related to the harmony and conservation of atmospheric environment, establishment of a wind environment design system, nano-scale and macro-scale functional semiconductor dynamics, ceramics, composite materials, heat-resistant coating structure, which relate to advanced structure materials and the strength and fracture of structural elements.

Special Facilities

In addition, the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics functions several special experimental facilities to support these education and research opportunities, such as a Low Noise Wind Tunnel (two measurement sections; 2m~2m and 3.5m~3.5m in size, and maximum wind velocity is 60m/s), Advanced Aerospace Engineering Facilities (a supersonic wind tunnel of Mach number 2.5 or 3.5, a transonic flutter wind tunnel of Mach number 0.4~1.3, and a Microgravity Experimental Drop Tower (18m in height).